When we enter a life of real, prevailing prayer, we are lifted into a supernatural world. It is indeed a real spirit world, with its revolutions, its seasons, its laws and phenomena, as distinctly marked as those of a material world. Prevailing prayer has its beginnings, its progress, its maturity, in which state there are certain signs by which we may conclude that the prayer has been accepted by our heavenly Father. I may not specify all of these signs, but among the tokens that our prayer has been answered, I will mention the following:

1. A vehement impulse to pray for a certain thing, especially when it is disconnected from self-interest, or private, personal ends of our own, may be taken as a sign that the Holy Spirit is carrying out some of the Father’s designs through us. The Holy Spirit is an incessant fountain of prayer, and he selects certain souls through whom to pour certain special prayers. With infinite wisdom and love he arranges a fitness between the prayer and the soul with whom he burdens it. God would not inspire a prayer which he did not intend to answer, and when the petition increases in sweet intensity, the soul may rest assured that it has been chosen as a channel of God’s will in offering the prayer, and that the answer will be granted.

 2. When the praying one has a firm confidence amounting to a moral certainty, that the prayer is in perfect accordance with God’s will, he may take it as a conviction that the prayer is answered. This sign is generally in the shape of a firm confidence, without knowing any special cause for it. The outward circumstances are still unchanged, mountainous obstacles may seem in the way of the prayer being answered, the soul may have no outward evidences of the answer, and yet the mind has a calm conviction, and the heart has a restful assurance, that in some way the subject matter of the prayer will come out all right. As a rule in such cases, the soul has no idea how the prayer will be answered ; it has no plan as to the mode of the answer; perhaps it would be puzzled to invent a way for the answer; but in spite of its darkness, and all appearances, there is an unaccountable conviction that the thing will be done.

3. Another sign of answered prayer is a deep, strangely sweet indifference as to whether the prayer is answered or not. This is not the dull, stupid indifference of death, but the sweet, vivacious, joyful indifference of intense life. It is accompanied with an ardent love for God’s will. There may be a sudden burst of passionate attachment to God’s will, which it sees to be infinitely preferable to all its own desires, so that it is lifted out of its own petitions and away from any special choice into the vision of the sweet and boundless will of God which makes it seem for the time being utterly indifferent of its own petitions. I know a man who, in great financial straits, was pleading with God for weeks for relief. Suddenly, one night, he experienced a sweet, joyful indifference come into his spirit as to whether he was relieved or not. From that moment he knew that his prayer was answered, and the sequel abundantly verified his conclusion.

4. Another token is when the prayer is entirely taken from us, so that we have no inclination to pray it and even forget at times to mention it in prayer. Sometimes the soul will feel a gentle check upon it not to offer the petition. The burden of prayer has been like a storm which has gathered itself into great vigor and swept through the soul for days or weeks with its rending wind and torrents of rain, but when the storm has passed all is still; the birds come out to sing, the raindrops glitter on the leaves, the rainbow floats on the receding cloud, but every element of the tempest has disappeared. This is sometimes the likeness of a tempestuous prayer which has spent itself through the soul. In such a case, when we attempt to offer the prayer we find ourselves forgetting to plead, and an involuntary thanksgiving springs up from the depths of the inner spirit. We cannot force ourselves to keep on begging, for a great calmness has come, and happy thoughts, like singing birds, flit through the mind.

5. Another sign of answered prayer is a victorious laughter of the heart. It may be difficult to describe this phenomenon, yet it is Scriptural, and, in some instances, a marked experience in prayer. This particular sign is apt to come to the soul when praying in great distress or against seeming impossibilities. We have an instance of this in Sarah, who, with her husband, had long been praying against the seeming impossible, and the answer to her prayer was preceded with triumph and laughter. Isaiah records a similar experience when he and Hezekiah were praying to God against the besieging army of the Assyrians. This is the word which the Lord hath spoken concerning  Sennacherib: “The daughter of Zion has despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn.” It is evident that Isaiah felt that strange, divine laughter go through his soul. Sometimes, when I have been pleading for an hour or more for God to do a work seemingly against all earthly odds, I have felt a sweet ripple of inexpressible laughter go through my spirit and found myself involuntarily smiling through my tears. Just as there are different signs, so there are different kinds of  prayer. I think it will be found that particular kinds of prayer will be accompanied by particular signs of the answer.

6. Sometimes God gives a mark of answered prayer in the shape of a great rebuke or a deep cutting humiliation. In such cases God greatly honors the soul by putting its faith to a severe test. We have Scripture samples of this in the case of Hannah, whose prayer was so ardent and spiritual that it surpassed words, and only her lips moved, and Eli severely rebuked her as a drunken woman. Another instance is that of the mother of Jesus at the marriage in Cana, whom Jesus seemed to speak to in a severe manner, when she requested him to produce wine. Another case is the Syrophenician woman, whom Jesus compared to a little dog. Please notice that in all these instances the humiliation, mortification and rebuke preceded the most remarkable and abundant answers to prayer. These answers are still repeated in spirit. Sometimes in great agony of prayer we feel as if God is treating us coldly, as if we are spurned from His presence, and our hearts feel lacerated with severe rebukes ; yet, instead of these feelings driving us from God, we run to him and crouch the closer still, and feel perfectly willing to bear any reproach, or stigma, if he will only hear our cry. With these seeming rebukes there is given a greater fervency of prayer, so that in the apparent rebuff there is an intuitive persuasion that if we persevere the petition will be granted. We are not to seek for any of these signs, but to earnestly seek God for the things needed, and let him send the signs according to his loving will. We must be careful not to fret our hearts or minds about the answers to our prayers, for all such worry and fret only delay the answer.

The very climax of prayer is where the most vehement desire in the spirit is conjoined with the most restful patience upon the movement of God’s will. The foregoing signs are some of the telegrams which the Holy Spirit dispatches into us that our petitions are granted through the infinite merit of Jesus.